4 2GN The Sunday Times February 13, 2022
NEWS
2020-21, according to data
from the National Gambling
Treatment Service.
Adverts often feature
middle-aged women in bold
clothing and jewellery, and
games are given
stereotypically feminine
branding with pink bubble
writing and pastel colours.
Clinicians and researchers
argue that bingo adverts are
becoming a gateway for
viewers to migrate to slot
machines and traditional
betting websites.
Bingo and lottery adverts
are the only form of gambling
advertising allowed on
television before the
watershed, but there is
nothing to stop the sites from
pushing more addictive
online slots. Gala Bingo
sponsors game show The
Chase, which airs on ITV long
before 5pm — but its homepage has far more links to
casino or slot games than
traditional bingo.
Foxy Bingo also advertises
during the day and sponsors
the late-night Channel 4 show
First Dates. Its homepage is
also filled with slot games.
Matt Gaskell, who is the
clinical leader for the NHS
Northern Gambling Service,
believes more questions need
to be asked about how
women are being sucked in.
“Bingo has become a front
for casino forms of gambling,
for highly addictive slot
machines. They’re
deliberately using
environments to target
women, to move them on to
the most addictive forms of
gambling, even if their
original intentions are just to
perhaps go with a group of
friends to the bingo on a
Saturday night,” he said.Samantha, from Glasgow,
was sent hampers for several
years by Mecca Bingo, after
spending night after night
playing games on her iPad.
She earned a salary of
£14,000 working in childcare
but when she ran out of
money, she found other
sources, embezzling
£150,000 from her employer
and spending £40,000 from
her husband’s account.
Now she is seeking
treatment and repaying her
debts after considering
suicide in 2017.
“When I look back now it’s
scary. It just consumed my
whole mind,” she said.
The government is
reviewing laws on gambling
and a white paper is expected
this spring.
A spokesman for Mecca
Bingo rejected the claim that
bingo was “inappropriately
used as a gateway to other
products”. It said its “ non-
negotiable approach to safer
gambling is firmly at the heart
of everything that we do.”
Entain Group, which owns
Gala Bingo and Foxy Bingo,
said: “Our No 1 priority is to
ensure that our customers
play safely and within their
means.” It said it had
launched an “award-winning
approach to safer gaming”.
*Names have been changedFirst it was birthday money,
then came the luxury
Christmas hampers stuffed
with bottles of wine and
expensive chocolates, and
finally a £500 voucher for
designer handbags.
The presents that
Samantha*, 45, received were
not thoughtful tokens from a
friend or relative. They were
gifts from a gambling
company trying to convince
her to remain a customer.
Over three years,
Samantha, who has three
children, spent £250,
betting online. “The more
money I deposited, the better
the gifts became,” she said.
She had started visiting the
sites after winning £500 on a
slot machine at a bingo hall.
Samantha is one of
thousands of British women
lured into the world of
betting through games with
names such as Fluffy
Favourites and Rainbow
Riches, as well as advertising
blitzes on programmes such
as ITV’s The Chase and
Channel 4’s First Dates.
The number of women
receiving treatment for
gambling addiction has more
than doubled in the past five
years, to more than 2,400 inEmily Dugan
Social Affairs CorrespondentMecca Bingo’s homepage advertises a range of slot games‘12 to 15 youths’ set upon murdered boy
grass between the college and
a housing estate where
students gather during lunch
breaks, was cordoned off as
officers searched for clues.
The student went back to
the college to collect her car
yesterday and spoke to police
in tears. She was too upset to
be interviewed, but her
mother said: “She saw it
happen and she was the one
giving him CPR.
“She was in the building.
They had a class, I believe
they saw a gang of youths
dressed all in black
approaching, and one of
them stabbed another boy.
They thought it was nothingserious but obviously he
collapsed. My daughter left
her class and ran out and
tried to help him.”
The victim is not believed
to be a student at the college.
Police said he is yet to be
formally identified. The
college said on Facebook that
it was “devastated” by the
“terrible incident”.
An 18-year-old man has
been arrested on suspicion of
murder and was last night in
police custody.
Thames Valley police
praised healthcare students
and staff for going to the boy’s
aid. A spokesman said:
“These students are nowA student tried to save a 16-
year-old boy after he was
stabbed outside her college.
The 22-year-old was in a
class at Milton Keynes College
when she saw the victim set
upon by “12 to 15 youths”
dressed all in black. She said
that the teenager was knifed
in the back.
The woman, who wants to
work in nursing, ran out and
performed CPR, according to
her mother, but the boy could
not be saved after the attack
on Friday afternoon and died
in hospital.
The crime scene, a patch ofHugo Daniel receiving specialist support
from the college and we
would like to publicly
commend the courage and
selflessness that they have
demonstrated in these tragic
circumstances.”
Cheryl Thornley, who
spent 20 years in the police
and whose 16-year-old
daughter goes to the college ,
said: “This has just got
beyond a joke. Milton Keynes
was kind of sold as this
perfect place outside
London, no crime. There are
a lot of stabbings where it’s
young people and it doesn’t
feel like anybody is really
doing anything about it.”From bingo to bankruptcy:
tricks lure female gamblers
decides whether to uphold
her suspension.
Nicknamed “Miss Perfect”,
Valieva led the Russian figure
skating team to first place last
Monday after pulling off a
record-breaking quadruple
jump. However, the awarding
of the gold medal was delayed
because of a “legal issue”.
It later transpired that
Valieva had tested positive for
the banned heart medication
trimetazidine, which is used
to prevent angina attacks, on
Christmas Day. The result
only came to light last week
after a Covid-19 outbreak at a
Stockholm lab delayed
reporting. Valieva was
provisionally suspended bythe Russian anti-doping
agency but that decision was
overturned.
“I am absolutely sure that
Kamila is innocent and pure.
And for us this is not a
theorem, but an axiom — this
does not need to be proved,”
Tutberidze told Russian state
media yesterday.
She added: “It is very
unclear why an athlete with a
suspected doping [result] was
cleared to compete at the
Olympic Games. Either this
was a fateful set of
circumstances or a well-
planned plan. I hope our
leaders will not abandon us,
will defend our rights and
prove our innocence.”The Russian authorities
said that Valieva had tested
negative before and after the
positive sample was taken.
Tutberidze is one of the
most controversial characters
in figure skating because of
her training methods, which
often force athletes to retire
young because of injury.
Yesterday the International
Olympic Committee said it
would welcome an anti-
doping investigation into
Valieva’s “entourage”.
The CAS is to hear the case
today, with a decision set to
be handed down before
Valieva is due to compete in
the women’s individual
competition on Tuesday.Tories nudge
donors into
plum state jobs
The Conservative Party is helping donors
apply for public roles, with officials offer-
ing behind-the-scenes support and direct-
ing applicants to a secretive Number 10
unit closed to members of the public.
Leaked documents show that Tory
officials have referred supporters to the
prime minister’s appointments unit,
whose existence is not widely acknowl-
edged and which operates using inter-
changeable names.
Ben Elliot, the party chairman, is
among those to have helped donors navi-
gate the appointments process, often
raising funds for political purposes at the
same time.
In one instance, in May 2020, Elliot,
46, received a message from a donor who
had conceived of a new role for himself
overseeing emergency Covid-19 loans.
Elliot responded by looping in two peo-
ple to an email: one of Boris Johnson’s
most senior advisers and an aide at party
headquarters. He told his colleagues the
donor would be an “excellent candi-
date”. The idea ultimately fizzled out.
In another case, in December of the
same year, Elliot’s staff lobbied for
Mohamed Amersi, a telecoms million-
aire, to be considered for a £40,000-a-
year role as chairman of the National Lot-
tery Community Fund, which distributes
lottery proceeds to charitable causes.
A Conservative Party insider wrote to a
colleague: “Amersi is very interested in
the chairmanship and certainly has the
skills for it (I know the Fund). I have spo-
ken to [another official] but know you
work with the public appointments team.
Can we see that he is at least considered
for the role. He would be terrific.”
The colleague responded: “I [will]
endeavour to get the progress Mohamed
deserves and suits as you rightly say... ”
A minister later emailed to say that
they had discussed Amersi’s case withGabriel Pogrund Whitehall EditorChosen few receive help from little-known Downing Street unit
Dope test skater is ‘pure’, says coach
The coach of the 15-year-old
Russian figure skater who
clinched Olympic gold after
testing positive for a banned
substance has insisted she is
“innocent and pure” and
suggested that she is the
victim of a conspiracy.
Eteri Tutberidze said that
there were “lots of questions
and very few answers”
about Kamila Valieva, the
Moscow schoolgirl who
has rocked the Beijing
Winter Olympics.
Valieva will learn her fate
tomorrow when the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS)Liam Kelly
Marc Bennetts MoscowKamila Valieva trains with her coaching team in Beijing in the hope that she will be allowed to compete this weekBERNAT ARMANGUE/APAmanda Milling, who was the party’s
co-chairman at the time.
The party was keen to keep him in the
Leaders Group, a circle of donors who
enjoy special access to ministers where
the minimum contribution required is
£50,000, which he had decided to leave.
Amersi entered the final round for the lot-
tery fund role but lost out to Blondel
Cluff, a prominent solicitor and member
of the Commission on Race and Ethnic
Disparities.
In April 2020, she posted a picture of
her and her husband with the prime min-
ister, writing: “The optimism and drive
that fuels his leadership are inspirational
and unifying.” Algy Cluff served as chair-
man of The Spectator during Johnson’s
time as editor. Blondel Cluff is not a Tory
donor.
Amersi is involved in a high-profile dis-
pute with the party, which, he states,
failed to honour its pledge to formally
accredit a Middle Eastern forum he
founded.
He said he never gave money in the
hope of receiving a public role, but char-
acterised the party’s conduct as an exam-
ple of “access capitalism”.
He said: “What this and other initia-
tives that I embarked on reveal that, in
this country, increasingly what matters is
who you know, not what you know.”
According to a leaked party database
used to manage relationships with
donors, certain individuals’ desire to
take on roles in public life is an important
way of encouraging further contribu-
tions. In the case of one donor, “public
appointments” was listed in their “areas
of interests/type of chat” section.
In a leaked email sent to donors by the
treasurer’s department at Conservative
Party headquarters in late 2019, an assist-
ant to Mike Chatty, the party’s head of
fundraising, wrote: “We thought you may
be interested in the latest list of public
appointments. It is important Conserva-tives rebalance the representation at the
head of these important public bodies.”
The appointments unit, which sits
within Downing Street rather than the
politically neutral Cabinet Office, does
not provide any account of its day-to-day
activities. However, it sends regular
updates on vacant public roles and the
remuneration on offer to a private mail-
ing list that includes major party donors.
There is no way for members of the
public to sign up. In October, recipients
were told: “We would encourage you to
forward details of these appointments on
to your network of contacts and pass on
details if they would like to be added to
our distribution list.”
A government spokeswoman said the
newsletter was sent to a “wide list of peo-
ple who may be interested in appoint-
ments” and denied that recipients had
“preferential access” to information. A
source said that the unit had been set up
under David Cameron.
It increasingly forms part of a wider
effort by Johnson to change the political
complexion of those handed public roles
in the media, arts and government, amid
claims that public life is too dominated by
a liberal-leaning elite.
A Conservative Party spokesperson
said: “Public appointments are for the
government.”
A government spokesperson said:
“The No 10 appointments unit and news-
letter has existed across successive
administrations.
“The newsletter is sent to a wide list of
people who may be interested in appoint-
ments and the content is all available on
the public appointment’s website on
gov.uk — there is no preferential access to
this information.
“The No 10 appointments unit is
staffed by civil servants and all public
appointments are made on merit, in line
with the governance code on public
appointments.”